


That thing between us

by orphan_account



Series: A Bottle of Sin [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bleeding Edge, Endgame who?, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Smoking, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Tension, and the snap never happened, assuming tony and steve got together for a final battle against thanos on earth, did i mention smoking?, exchanging cigarette stick then, i love that fucking armour fight me, lots of unresolved things like a mountain of em, reformed avengers with tony co-captaining the team with steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 18:28:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19215079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After one of their team mission, Tony catches Steve smoking.





	That thing between us

“You smoke?”

The familiar figure turns around, leaning with his back against the rusty railing of the old balcony. An unamused eyebrow quirked up in Tony’s direction and a cigarette hangs loosely between his index and middle fingers, both elbows perched carelessly atop the metal bar. One word crosses Tony’s mind. Las vicious.

Steve Rogers in his Captain America suit, donning the sacred five pointed star on his chest, boots and gloves still on unlike his famous cowl and there he is, leaning with his tall, serum enhanced two hundred and forty pounds of muscle, looking like Adonis but here’s the kick. He’s sucking on a death stick that is frowned upon many in this 21st century like he couldn’t give a single fuck even if he cared.

A shiver travels up Tony’s spine and he shakes it off, feigning a muscle strain in his neck as he cranes his head to the right and gives a quick tap to his sternum. The Bleeding Edge unravels him completely within the two steps he takes forward but Tony knew how he must have looked as the nanoparticles crawled away and into the arc reactor centred on his chest. He’s seen himself in the mirror, practiced and preened at the picture he made. It’s the discreet flare of dramatics he successfully perfected after numerous trials and the way Steve’s Adam’s apple bob as his eyes stay fixed on Tony is gratifying enough for all those sleepless nights he spent working on it.

“It’s beautiful.” Steve marvels aloud. His voice a low murmur but its intended to be heard and Tony smirks indulgently. “I know.”

Once upon time, Steve wouldn’t have been this transparent. Once upon a time, Tony would have given a snarkier response. But those were all before the universe had threatened to extinct on them, before they had to hastily patch everything up between them, plaster on some lousy band aids all over each other - with a simple _'I told you'_ and a regretful _'I know,'_  - and run down to battle field to protect the world.

“I wouldn’t peg you for a smoker.” Tony stops beside Steve, taking in the debris and gazillion dust particles flickering under the revolving helicopter lights searching for trapped victims. FRIDAY confirmed over the comm earlier that there were no heat rays detected under the wreckage. They had made sure to evacuate the city before unleashing the HULK but, Tony’s holding a grudge against the Senator still, so he watches his government work their asses of for a trickle of personal satisfaction.

Steve snorts, pulling in a long drag before he too turns back to look down at the latest mess they’ve made to New York. Tony thinks he hears a wince but ignores it to focus on the close proximity between them. He’s touch starved. Between his latest breakup with Pepper, which he knows is going to last forever this time, and his busy schedule – trying to juggle in damage control between each Avenger missions, innovating and co-captaining the Team alongside Steve – Tony’s lost his last recollection of an intimate touch.

Not that he’d classify their current position – standing next to each other, bodies barely touching but occasionally Steve’s bare arm from his ruggedly rolled up sleeves will come in contact with Tony’s own bare arm in his own scrunched up long sleeves causing spikes of goose bumps to ravel along Tony’s body. Not to forget, the body heat of a super soldier with super metabolism, burning like a hot furnace – as anything remarkably intimate but, the weight that hangs between them is perpetually palpable and usually during times like these, when they’re both alone in a shared space, Tony always feels like he’s stripped bare. Vulnerable and all scars out, aching to be cared after, to be healed and somehow, somewhere along that line, he’s convinced that he’s not the only one feeling that way, which makes the two of them in a vulnerable state and how is that not intimate at all?

“I lived in the 40s.” Steve murmurs next to him, eyes trained somewhere far on the skyline and he’s got his usual frown wiped out. Tony thinks it makes him look exceptionally younger like that. Barren of all the pain and burdens he always shoulders. “I grew up watching men smoke cigars, wondering how that would taste. Smoking was positively advertised then, you know.” He breathes out a soft laughter, blue eyes crinkling at the ends, exposing the crowfeet from his short 30 years of life. Tony’s suddenly invaded by ideas of how he’d like to map out each and all lines on Steve’s face with his bare hands. He quickly shuts it down, nodding as Steve continues, oblivious to Tony’s thoughts. “But you see, I was asthmatic. So that was a huge no for me.”

“So, what?” Tony interrupts lightly. “You took your first drag the moment you stepped out of lab looking like that?” He just his chin at Steve's body, meaningfully.

Steve barks out a laugh. His crowfeet deepening and newly formed laugh lines showing. Tony likes the latter the most. They took so many years to form that Tony feels a personal obligation towards keeping them there, each time he sees them making an appearance, he feels his own mouth stretch into a smile. Like now.

“No.” Steve shakes his head, eyes moving from the skyline to Tony for a fleeting second before returning and Tony thinks he spots adoration there but he has unbeaten losing streaks in ‘spot this correctly’ game so he lets it go. “My first drag was in 2015, a Wakandan roll.” Steve confesses. His voice dropping an octave, pulling at the hanging weight between him and Tony and colouring everything instantly grey around them. Tony’s brain is swirling with imagined pictures of one Steve Rogers, in his worn out stealth suit he saw him in when they first met after Siberia, thick beard and long slicked blonde hair with a cigar in between his lips and once again, Tony mourns for that lost facial hair.

 _I hate you,_ Tony wants to say, instead. “Mind if I-,” He jerks his chin at the half-burnt stick. Steve’s blue eyes widen, dancing between Tony and the cigarette before he locks them on Tony, deftly flipping the stick between his fingers and offering the end to Tony. Tony silently accepts, putting the cigarette between his lips and pulling in his first drag since 2011. His lungs burn in renewed anger, his throat feels like they’re swallowing fire but he maintains his cool like he always does, blinking back the welling tears and breathing in a long inhale of cool air through his nose to beat down the urge to cough violently. He feels Steve’s eyes on him, throughout the entire thing and he swallows, taking another drag stubbornly as if he needs to prove something.

“How does Wakandan blend taste like?” He asks, appreciating the second pull better than the first, now that the initial defence of his body against nicotine has been dampened.

It’s Tony’s turn now, to keep his eyes out and everywhere but to look into Steve’s. It’s a tricky but necessary thing. Even on good days, the longest they could look into each other’s eyes without flinching is about six seconds, max. Yes, Tony counted, because he’s born with masochism fused into his bloodstream. Steve on the other hand, keeps his head turned to face Tony and by the way the patch of skin along his neck prickles, Steve’s eyes are boring on him.

“I wouldn’t know.” Steve answers, his voice still on the low notch he dropped earlier. “I wasn’t seeking for taste. It was…,” He trails off, giving into silence.

“I hadn’t had one for seven years.” Tony admits, feeling his eyebrow draw closer as the words leave his lips and he takes another drag, watching the white smoke swirl out as he breathes it out his mouth. He turns to pass the final drag to Steve and keeps his eyes on him, watching with blatant interest how Steve easily places the stick between his too pink lips and pulls, his blue eyes hidden behind closed lids and long, thick lashes and Tony feels almost dizzy as rings of white smoke escapes Steve’s carefully curled lips. Silently, he wonders if Steve could taste him on that cigarette stick, like Tony could, Steve.

A siren goes off in the distance. Tony recognizes it instantly as that of the police. He turns back to the city beneath them, accidently tipping off some rubble from under his shoes with his motion and he follows the drop dazedly, mind elsewhere there isn’t any weight between Steve and him and he’d pull Steve in just to taste the smoke on his tongue. The heat along his left side burns and he realises with a thud in his chest that whatever distance had been there before between Steve and him, has now grown shorter. If before, their arms brushed occasionally, now it’s a long line of sweltering flesh against him and his immediate reaction is to pull away but he stays petulantly put, exactly where he is. Willing the shudder to die down at the base of his spine.

“Did I rob you off your cigarette celibacy?” Steve’s low voice is enticingly dark all of a sudden. Their proximity allowing the waves to vibrate through his chest to Tony’s unexpected back and the stubborn shudder breaks violently through Tony as he bites back an ashamed groan.

“Steve.” Tony warns, when he feels Steve pressing in closer to him. The police siren still blaring in the distance but the hot breath brushing against his neck is even more distracting, making his stomach drop heavily down his gut in surprise. Tony’s brain supplies with an image of their current position, how they may look – Steve’s bigger body pressing up against Tony’s, taller and looming over his smaller frame, trapped against the rusty railing of an old Brooklyn building – and another shiver passes through him, skin prickling in heat, perspiring. Funny, Tony thinks even then. Funny, how this is Brooklyn, Steve’s birthplace.  

Steve’s incredibly close to him, mouth hovering near his ears as he whispers lowly, asking “Can I kiss you, Tony?” like an old-fashioned gentleman he is, despite his 2018 Kevlar and breath smelling like the twenty first century Marlboro and Tony wants to scream, _yes. Yes, please!_ But it doesn’t feel right. Something tells him if he says yes, now, he’s going to win a deal for a cost of something bigger. Something solid, titanic and significant, and even if Tony has reverted back to old habits by sticking his mouth with a cigarette for that single moment, he’s not willing to extend that old habit to stick and fenestrate all over, eventually becoming his ruins like they had been in his twenties.

Yes, he wants to kiss Steve. Wants Steve to kiss him too. But not like this. Not when there’s a huge mountain they need to shave off between them.

“No.” He says, closing his eyes and willing himself to be strong enough to fight Steve off of him if necessary. But there’s no need for that, because one word, and the suffocating heat was gone. Just one word, and Steve has let go, the distance between them grown significantly bigger and Tony swallows down the acid of guilt working up his throat.

“Steve.” He presses softly, taking a small step to restore the initial distance between them. Not bigger, not smaller, just what they had started with.

“Did I read you wrong?” Steve asks the same moment Tony says, “Not like this.”

They look at each other, blue meets brown, unblinking and Tony notes with a swoop in his chest that this time they last for ten seconds.

“I don’t understand,” Steve frowns at the rescuers beneath them, trying to flip over a fallen advertisement board. Tony shares his view, fists clenching and unclenching beside him. “I’m not looking for hook-ups,” he says, leaving out the _‘with you’_ with a bite to his lower lip.

Steve whips his head up to him, yanking at his elbow in urgency. “Tony, I’m not trying to hook-up with you. I want to give you everything.” He says, his voice laced with panic, Tony notes, and a sliver of desperation.

Tony swallows audibly, his mouth parched and his throat dry, as he rasps out, “We’ve got unsettled issues, Steve. If we start something new on top our ugly foundation, we’re going to collapse spectacularly and I don’t want to give you that. I want – I-,” He struggles, one thumb over Steve’s clenched hand around his left elbow, running along the bulging blue vein on the back of it and he exhales. “We have to build everything from scrap, Steve. If you want-,”

“I want.” Steve insists, letting go his elbow for his hand as he breathes out an exhausted sigh. “Tony.” He says, searching for Tony’s eyes and holding when he’s found them, Tony's one hand cradled carefully in his both. “I’m tired of watching you and not being able to hold you. I want to change that. I want to hold you, I want to kiss you, I want to take you to bed and I want to make everything better for you. I want to kiss away all our pain, watch you heal and be the reason for that. When I said I want to give you everything, Tony, I meant it. I want to be yours and I want you to be mine.”

This time, Tony forgets to count. Between blue and tiny specks of green in them, Tony’s completely lost, his heart hammering painfully in his chest and he unthinkingly taps at the arc reactor out of habit, not expecting to be activating the Bleeding Edge and suddenly he’s fully suited, blinking from inside the HUD as Steve stares at him wide-eyed and mouth open in shock.

“Fuck,” Tony swears. Instantly tapping back at the arc reactor and deactivating the armour. “Fuck.” He repeats as the nanoparticles crawl away from his face and he swallows as he catches that familiar glint Steve gets in his eyes whenever he sees Tony stepping out of his armour. “That was a mistake.”

“I really want to kiss you now.” Steve shakes his head, looking down and away at his feet as Tony yearns to know what is going through his head in that moment. 

“Yeah?” He exhales shakily, feeling the last of the particles slip into the arc reactor and he clenches his fists, keeping them away from gripping at his aching chest.

Steve keeps his eyes grounded, vehemently, breathing out a huff of laughter that feels more like pain than humour. “Yeah.”

Tony thinks he’d be damned because Steve looks absolutely adorable like that. Scuffing his booted toes on the dusty ground and he’s right. “You can kiss me.” Tony permits. After all, a kiss feels like something coming after all that confessing.

He witnesses the shock and disbelief filters through Steve as his shoulders tense and he blinks owlishly at Tony. “Tony-,”

“Kiss me, Steve.” Tony dares, stepping forth and into Steve’s space, crowding all the heat in as the autumn wind whooshes pass them, messing up both of their hair and setting the dust particles aboard, hovering all over and around them.

Steve’s chin is caked with dust, an almost healed angry scar glistening up his left cheekbone and Tony thumbs along its line, breathing Steve in as he feels a hand sneak up his hip and settle onto his waist, clutching. “I want to give you everything too, Steve.” He murmurs, lips brushing tantalizingly against the five point star with a tiny tear on its center and when he looks up, he catches bright blue searching him desperately for a final permission which he silently gives with a nod and he allows himself to savour the moment Steve closes the final distance between them. Tentative lips meeting his carefully and when Tony presses forward, Steve crumbles, his broad hand closing in tighter around Tony’s waist as he pulls Tony closer and his big shoulders fall down, melting as he moans throatily into Tony’s mouth, pressing and pressing and when he slips a hot tongue in between, Tony opens up readily, allowing and falling as he follows wherever Steve chooses to led them to.

**Author's Note:**

> just a snippet but i do love the idea of steve and smoking. hmmm... *thinks of all the other sexy smoking ideas with steve and maybe a beard*


End file.
